D is for Dungeon

Dungeon Adventures, to be exact. What some people call "Dungeon Crawling".You might think: "Dungeons and Dragons" and you'd be partly right. What I've been slanting towards for several years now is some sort of tabletop Dungeon Adventure game. Not quite a full fledged RPG like D&D, or maybe something like D&D that isn't D&D.

I mean, D&D is fine as a concept and I've been following the whole Old School Renaissance D&D retro-clones for a while now. Swords and Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord, Dungeon Crawl Classics, etc. The problem is that I keep coming back to the basic mechanisms of level, and ep, Armour Classes, etc, which I rejected the first time back in the late 70's. (About the first time I played RuneQuest, to be precise). And I'm not interested in full fledged role-playing anyhow. What I want is some sort of fantasy wargame that can be run with continuing characters. A sort of RPG-lite.

Part of what is spurring this on is that, back when the Canadian dollar climbed way up with respect to the US dollar and at the same time Dwarven Forge switched the format of their product, they put all their old stuff on at 40% off.  And I bought up a ton of it. Enough to fill ten foot of wall shelving floor to ceiling. :-)

Ever since then I've been looking for the best system to use it with. I've toyed with Broadsword Adventure, by Rattrap Productions, and even tried to shoe horn a D&D-like magic system onto it. I've also tried Barbarians of Lemuria. I've considered Pendragon and In the Labyrinth/TFT and some of the Two Hour Wargames offerings. Recently I have considered Osprey's new "Ronin" rules. And even more recently I've considered RuneQuest, either 2nd edition or the new 6th edition.

Now I am considering going back and trying Ganesha Games "Song of Blood and Heroes" again. I had tried it for a few games several years ago but found that some aspects were too simplistic and that I immediately started to tinker with it. And then my PC crashed and since it was a PDF it was lost back into the ether. Now I'm thinking that maybe tinkering isn't so bad, as I seem to have to tinker with every rule set. I just have to make sure I get a printed copy this time...

N is for Night Ops

Wot I'm backing this month!

What the heck, I know today isn't supposed to be "N" - at least I suspect not - but this year I am so messed up with "Blogging A-to-Z" thing anyway. So - what the heck, eh? Sick the Alphabet Cops and Grammar Nazis on me! :-P

But, back to the point. I just backed a cool new Kickstarter by the fine folks at "Open Fire Figures". It is for some pretty sharp looking sci/fi figures, "Night OPs" Adam calls them. I guess b/c they have night vision helmets though to me they are just "cool sci/fi helmets." :-)

Check it out here: Night OPs

They remind me a bit of the cops in the Fifth Element - not same helmets, but all bulked up with armour and equipment. They will make a fine faction for my retro-sci/fi games. Mining Company guards, maybe, on Criticorium? Or Guild Mercenaries on one of the smaller worlds...

C is for Cave Girls!

Cave Girls sure have a hard time of it, don't they! ;-)

These are by Frank Cho, BTW.

B is for Bacteria!

The sort that cause stomach flu in this case.

This A to Z Challenge started off on the wrong foot for me anyway: two days after it started my computer died. The next day I had to leave on a trip and it was the middle of the following week before I could buy a replacement: the cheapest laptop I could find, which is what I am hunting and pecking at now.

THEN I came down with this damn stomach flu. Dire Rear, as they say. :-(

It had cleared up, and I went back to work but now it seems to be rearing its ugly head again! Grrr! Not so bad this time, so maybe it is just lingering effects. It certainly is causing me to narrow down the source of the problem: work or McDonald's where I grabbed breakfast on Monday. Nobody else at home is sick, so I am ruling that out.

A is for Apocrita

According to Wikipedia, Apocrita is a suborder of insects that includes wasp, bees and ants.

To quote: "The term wasp is typically defined as any insect of the order Hymenoptera and suborder Apocrita that is neither a bee nor an ant."

The picture is of a giant wasp, formerly sold by Mega Miniatures as part of one of their sci-fi ranges. Last year the molds were sold off and while someone else bought the sci/fi range, they did not want the wasp so I picked up that.

I am intending on doing some fantasy riders...